(Revised 2003)

Developed by: The New York State Education Department’s Middle-Level Education
Program in collaboration with The New York State Middle School Association
The Statewide Network of Middle-Level Education Liaisons and The New York
City Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform

The standards-focused middle level school or program is purposeful. It
has two basic goals:

The intellectual development and academic achievement of all students,
and the personal and social development of each student.

In a standards-focused middle-level school or program these two goals are
not in conflict or competition; rather, they are compatible, complementary,
mutually supportive, and inextricably linked.

The seven essential elements of standards-focused middle-level school programs
are:

A philosophy and mission that reflect the intellectual and
developmental needs and characteristics of young adolescents
(youth 10-14 years of age).

An educational program that is comprehensive, challenging, purposeful,
integrated, relevant, and standards-based.

An organization and structure that support both academic excellence
and personal development.

Classroom instruction appropriate to the needs and characteristics of
young adolescents provided by skilled and knowledgeable teachers.

Strong educational leadership and a building administration that encourage,
facilitate, and sustain involvement, participation, and partnerships.

A network of academic and personal support available for all students.

Professional learning and staff development for all staff that are ongoing,
planned, purposeful, and collaboratively developed.

Essential Element 1: Philosophy and Mission

A philosophy and mission that reflect the intellectual and developmental
needs and characteristics of young adolescents (youth 10-14 years of age).

Every young adolescent deserves a school that values academic achievement
and personal development and provides a supportive environment…..

The middle-level educational program has a purpose beyond linking the elementary
grades and the high school. Its basic aims are to educate and nurture. It
has a culture of collective and shared responsibility. To be successful,
it must attend to both the intellectual development and the personal needs
of young adolescents. The philosophy and mission of a standards-focused
middle-level school or program must reflect a set of shared beliefs.

Working together to ensure that all students achieve at high levels
and, with appropriate guidance and structure, develop independence and
responsibility.

Accepting - individually and collectively - responsibility for the educational
and personal development of each and every student.

Ensuring for each student a safe, inviting, trusting, and mutually-respectful
learning environment that offers both physical and psychological safety.

Connecting each young adolescent in positive ways with the school and
with caring adults within the school.

Providing each student with a variety of learning experiences that are
academically challenging, developmentally appropriate, and personally
relevant in order for each of them to make informed educational and personal
decisions.

Providing a successful transition from the elementary grades to the
middle grades to the high school grades and from childhood to adolescence.

Establishing partnerships with the home and the community.

Essential Element 2: Educational Program

An educational program that is comprehensive, challenging, purposeful,
integrated, relevant, and standards-based.

Every young adolescent needs a challenging, standards-based course of study
that is comprehensive, integrated, and relevant.

A standards-focused middle-level educational program:

Emphasizes not only intellectual development but also personal,
social, physical, and ethical development.

Is challenging, rigorous, and purposeful.

Is comprehensive and inclusive, embracing and encompassing all of the
State's 28 learning standards.

Is articulated vertically and horizontally, within and across the various
curricular areas, learning standards, and grade levels.

Has a set of learning skills (e.g., how to study, how to conduct research,
how to read for understanding, how to take notes, etc.) that are common
across all grades and subject areas and taught and reinforced in each
grade and subject area.

Emphasizes reading, writing, and mathematics (literacy and numeracy)
across the subject areas with expectations for performance that are consistent
across and within the disciplines and commonly understood by teachers,
students, and parents.

Has performance expectations that are common across all grades and subject
areas (e.g., students must write in complete sentences).

Is articulated with the elementary feeder schools and with the secondary
receiving schools, building on the foundational knowledge and skills of
the elementary grades and, in doing so, preparing students for success
in high school.

Has up-to-date written curricula (that are based on and aligned with
the State's learning standards), instructional support, and learning aids
for all subject areas.

Includes diagnostic assessments (similar in design to the State's assessments)
that regularly and routinely monitor the learning of each student relative
to the State's standards and community expectations.

Offers opportunities for the development of personal responsibility
and self direction.

Encourages students to pursue personal interests, engage in school and
community activities (e.g., sports, clubs, etc.), explore potential futures
and careers, develop useful social, interpersonal, and life skills needed
to live a full and productive life, and nurture a "love of learning."

Provides targeted and timely academic intervention services that are
based upon a careful assessment of the academic, social, and emotional
needs of students at risk of not meeting the State’s learning standards.

Engages and involves the family, local community, and the world outside
school in the education and personal development of young adolescents.

Essential Element 3: Organization and Structure

An organization and structure that support both academic excellence and
personal development.

Young adolescents learn and develop best in a school that is organized
and structured to promote academic achievement and personal development.

Standards-focused schools with middle-level grades are organized to promote
academic excellence and personal development, to establish within staff
and students a feeling of belonging and a sense of personal identification
with the school and its purposes, and to help young adolescents make a successful
transition from the elementary grades to the high school grades and from
childhood to adolescence.

A standards-focused school that enrolls young adolescents should:

Have teacher teams sharing responsibility for the education
and personal development of a common group of students.

Have common planning time for those teachers and teacher teams sharing
responsibility for a common group of students.

Have schedules with flexible time assignments within blocks of time
to encourage interdisciplinary programs and the creative use of time.

Contain at least three of the four middle grades (the four middle grades
being grades 5, 6, 7, and 8).

Have comparatively small enrollments so that every student is viewed
as an individual and receives personal attention. When the school population
is large, have "houses" or schools-within-schools to promote
a sense of family, to reduce the feeling of anonymity and isolation among
students, and to engender within staff, students, and the community a
feeling of belonging and personal identification with the school and with
its purposes.

Be structured to create close, sustained relationships between students
and teachers.

Ensure that all students, staff, parents, and families feel secure,
valued and respected as significant contributors to the school community.

Provide, for those students needing additional help to meet the State's
standards, opportunities for additional time, instruction, and personal
support (e.g., after school, before school, summer school, reduced class
size, tutoring, pupil personnel services, etc.).

Provide a variety of co-curricular and extra-curricular activities.

Provide opportunities for students to participate in youth service,
community service and/or service learning activities.

Encourage active parent involvement through a variety of activities.

Establish ties with the school community that strengthen connections
between school/education and career opportunities.

Promote and encourage appropriate participation of pupils with disabilities
in all curricular, co-curricular, and extra-curricular activities.

Have students with disabilities or other special needs, as well as their
programs and services, integrated throughout the school building to ensure
access to the same instruction as their peers.

Provide support services such as guidance, counseling, and health-related
services to all students.

Integrate technology into the educational program so that it supports
student learni.ng in a purposeful way.

Provide a gradual transition from the more self-contained classrooms
of the elementary school to the more departmentalized structure of the
high school, providing students with opportunities for increasingly independent
learning experiences and responsibilities within a safe and structured
environment.

Essential Element 4: Classroom Instruction

Classroom instruction appropriate to the needs and characteristics of young
adolescents provided by skilled and knowledgeable teachers.

Every young adolescent requires skilled and caring teachers who have a
thorough understanding of their subject(s) and of the students they teach.

Teachers in middle-level classrooms understand and appreciate the emotional,
intellectual, physical, psychological, and social changes that are occurring
within their students and recognize the behaviors manifested by these changes.
They use instructional techniques and processes that capitalize on the unique
developmental characteristics and individual needs of early adolescents.

Successful middle-level teachers in a standards-focused school:

Are caring and respectful in their interactions with students
and with other adults.

Provide instruction that is standards-based, challenging, rigorous,
and purposeful.

Know and understand the needs and developmental characteristics of young
adolescents.

Have a deep understanding of their subject matter, of different approaches
to student learning, and of diverse teaching techniques.

Know and understand each of the State's 28 learning standards and -
when and where appropriate - reinforce them routinely during regular classroom
instruction.

Use a range of successful, research-based teaching strategies that are
developmentally and cognitively appropriate, matching instruction to the
students' varied learning styles and different intelligences.

Involve students in their learning, encouraging them to contribute to
their learning experiences, to make choices, to explore, to question,
to experience, to learn, to grow, to develop social, interpersonal and
leadership skills in addition to academic proficiency.

Vary activities to maintain student interest.

Use technology and other instructional resources purposefully to support
and enhance learning.

Focus instruction on thinking, reasoning, and problem solving and, at
the same time ensure that students acquire necessary content and subject
matter.

Use interdisciplinary approaches to help students integrate their studies
and meet learning standards.

Use flexible grouping based upon student needs and interests to help
each student achieve the learning standards, with students changing groups
often, depending on individual needs and program purposes.

Use classroom assessments that reflect the State's learning standards
and are aligned with State assessments.

Use classroom assessments that are instructionally useful indicators
of individual student growth and performance not only to monitor each
student’s progress in meeting the State’s learning standards but also
to plan instruction.

Use student data, both personal and achievement, to make curricular
and instructional decisions.

Use cooperative learning groups and peer-tutoring opportunities to develop
social and interpersonal skills in addition to academic proficiency.

Consult with each other and with other school personnel. Teachers with
regular education assignments and those assigned to programs for students
with special needs work closely together.

Maintain performance expectations that are consistent and interrelated
across and within subject areas.

Inform and involve parents of middle-level students in their children's
education by helping them understand the learning standards their children
must meet, the instructional program, their children's progress, and how
to help their children at home with schoolwork, school decisions, and
successful development through adolescence.

Are themselves learners who are constantly engaged in professional and
intellectual growth activities.

Recognize that they must work together cooperatively and collaboratively
- rather than individually and in isolation - to ensure that all their
students achieve at high levels and meet all the State's learning standards.

Essential Element 5: Educational Leadership

Strong educational leadership and a building administration that encourage,
facilitate, and sustain involvement, participation, and partnerships.

Every young adolescent should be educated in schools that have knowledgeable,
effective, and caring leaders.

Standards-focused middle-level schools and programs need purposeful leadership
if they are to develop and prosper.

Those in positions of leadership must:

Know and understand the needs and developmental characteristics
of young adolescents.

Know and understand the essential elements of a standards-focused, high
performing middle-level school or middle-level program.

Know and understand each of the 28 learning standards and how they interrelate.

Know and understand the State's assessment system.

Have an understanding of the subject matter in the middle grades and
its interconnections, of different approaches to student learning, and
of diverse teaching strategies.

Create, promote, and sustain a school culture of mutual support and
collective responsibility for the educational and personal development
of each and every young adolescent.

Articulate and maintain high standards for classroom instruction and
student performance.

Have high expectations for students and staff.

Know a range of successful, research-based teaching techniques that
are developmentally and cognitively appropriate, matching instruction
to the students' varied learning styles and different intelligences.

Involve staff and others in the operation of the school or program,
empowering and encouraging them to contribute and to make decisions that
benefit students.

Provide students with opportunities to assume significant and meaningful
leadership roles in the school.

Support and encourage teachers, individually and collectively, to take
risks, to explore, to question, to try new instructional approaches, to
continue as learners, and to grow.

Promote and facilitate inter-school cooperation, collaboration, and
communication with feeder elementary schools and receiving high schools.

Inform and involve parents of middle-level students in their children's
education by helping them understand the needs and developmental characteristics
of young adolescents, the learning standards their children must meet,
the instructional program, their children' progress, and how to help their
children at home with schoolwork, school decisions, and successful development
through adolescence.

Promote school/community partnerships and involve members of the community
in school activities and initiatives, empowering and encouraging them
to contribute and make decisions that benefit students.

Essential Element 6: A Network of Academic and Personal Support

A network of academic and personal support available for all students.

Every young adolescent needs access to a system that supports both academic
achievement and personal development.

Middle-level students need academic and personal support as they experience
the changes associated with the transition from childhood to adolescence
and from elementary school to high school.

Academic and personal support includes:

Adults and older youths to provide positive role models and
constant affirmation and recognition.

Respect and caring to engender a feeling of self-worth, self-confidence,
and personal efficacy.

Opportunities to examine, explore, discuss, and understand the changes
associated with early adolescence.

Counseling and guidance services to assist students and their families
in making life, career, and educational choices.

A system of two-way communication between the school and the parents
and families of its students.

A process for informing parents, families, and community groups of the
essential role they play in ensuring students attend school and access
available services, in expanding and enhancing venues for significant
learning, in promoting youth development, and in supporting positive school
change.

A network of trained professionals, special programs, and community
resources available to assist those who have extraordinary needs and require
additional services to cope with the changes of early adolescence and/or
the academic demands of middle-level education. Schools need to collaborate
and cooperate with other human service agencies in the community.

An adult mentor in addition to a guidance counselor, either formally
through a teacher/student, advisor/advisee program or informally through
a school culture of caring in which teachers or other adults assume responsibility
for individual students.

Essential Element 7: Professional Learning

Professional learning and staff development for all staff that are ongoing,
planned, purposeful, and collaboratively developed.

Every young adolescent deserves an educational setting that values continuous
improvement and ongoing professional learning.

Teachers, administrators, and other school staff in a standards-focused
middle-level school or program need regular, planned opportunities for professional
and intellectual growth. Schools with middle-level grades need to be professional
learning communities.

Teachers, administrators, and staff need to:

Know the needs and characteristics of students in the middle
grades and the instructional strategies and techniques that work
best for these students.

Understand the philosophy and mission of the standards-driven middle-level
school.

Understand and implement the Regents Policy Statement on Middle-Level
Education and the Essential Elements of Standards-Focused Middle-Level
Schools and Programs.

Have high expectations for all students.

Be familiar with each of the State's 28 learning standards and incorporate
in their own classrooms and work spaces educational experiences that help
all students achieve all the standards - including those that are outside
their own area of content expertise.

Know and understand their subject matter and course curriculum thoroughly.

Know and understand the State's assessment system.

Know and understand how to use data to make curricular and instructional
decisions to improve students’ academic performance and/or enhance personal
development.

Collaborate and cooperate in planning and providing professional learning
opportunities.

Conclusion

The middle grades play a critical role in the educational continuum. Schools
with middle-level grades that are standards-focused attend to the twin purposes
of academic preparation and individual self-development for all young adolescents.
They do this by:

Accepting collective responsibility for ensuring that all students
are successful and learning at high levels.

Creating small communities for learning and providing comprehensive
guidance and support services.

Providing an academically excellent and developmentally responsive educational
experience for every student.

Establishing and maintaining a climate for learning that is respectful,
purposeful, physically and psychologically safe, and personalized to ensure
close, sustained relationships between students and teachers.

Providing a comprehensive educational program that is standards-based
- reflecting the State's 28 learning standards - challenging, integrative,
and exploratory.

Using flexible organizational structures and creative use of time.

Using a variety of research-based, instructional strategies that are
cognitively and developmentally appropriate and that respect individual
experiences, learning styles, and learning needs.

Employing knowledgeable and qualified personnel who are committed to
the education of young adolescents.

A high-performing, standards-focused middle-level school or program that
successfully addresses both the intellectual and personal needs of young
adolescents is profoundly different from many middle-level schools today.
To create schools that are true standards-focused, middle-level schools
will necessitate systemic change that will not be easy to accomplish. It
will require leadership, persistence, additional resources, time, and a
strong will to succeed. The task is challenging and daunting. However, it
is necessary, and it can be done.